The Bizarre Experience of Agreeing with Trump

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The last thing that the war industry wants is an honest discussion of the effects of our perpetual bombing campaign against targets in the Middle East and North Africa—a policy that has been profitable for contractors, costly for taxpayers and instrumental in producing failed states, floods of refugees and the terror threats it was supposed to eliminate.

In a rare moment of candor in the Dec. 15, 2015, Republican debate, Donald Trump acknowledged how our misguided policies since 9/11 have squandered trillions on wars that have made us less safe: “We’ve spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people. … The Middle East is totally destabilized. A total and complete mess.”

Trump’s ability to self-fund allows him to take on the military-industrial complex, at least rhetorically. Of course, rhetoric is not the same as policy. Trump’s association with groups like Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy—funded by the likes of Boeing and promoting bogus conspiracies about Sharia law in America—suggests that a President Trump would follow the same failed corporate-friendly policies of Bush and Obama.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that none of the corporate-funded candidates would dare risk taking on the military-industrial complex, even with empty rhetoric. The last thing that the war industry wants is an honest discussion of the effects of our perpetual bombing campaign against targets in the Middle East and North Africa—a policy that has been profitable for contractors, costly for taxpayers and instrumental in producing failed states, floods of refugees and the terror threats it was supposed to eliminate.

Compare Trump’s rhetoric to what you hear from a corporate-funded candidate like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), backed by Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, who is running an advertisement that declares:

[Radical Muslims] do not hate us because we have military assets in the Middle East—they hate us because of our values. They hate us because young girls here go to school. They hate us because women drive. They hate us because we have freedom of speech, because we have diversity in our religious beliefs.

No serious person believes this tripe. It is pure corporate propaganda that seeks to justify a policy of more bases, more drones and more killing. And Rubio is not running his ad to appeal to voters. Rather, he is assuring his corporate donors that nothing will come out of his mouth that is not fully vetted by their think tanks.

Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has similarly avoided any honest discussion of foreign policy. That might upset her donors, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Instead, Clinton has been busy condemning Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric as “inconsistent with our values as a nation.”

“At a time when America should be doing everything we can to fight radical jihadists,” Clinton said in December 2015, “Mr. Trump is supplying them with new propaganda.”

Yet Clinton has been a whole-hearted supporter of Obama’s drone war, which slaughters Muslims in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia based on secret evidence, a policy at least as un-American as Trump’s shameful rhetoric. As far as “supplying them with new propaganda,” a video depicting 178 children killed by Obama’s drone strikes is readily available online. As U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Ben Emmerson told CNN after a recent trip to Pakistan: “The consequence of drone strikes has been to radicalize an entirely new generation.”

At the most recent Democratic debate, Clinton voiced support for “the United States leading an air coalition [in Syria], which is what we're doing.” As of this Thanksgiving, the U.S. and its allies had already launched more than 7,000 air sorties against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. But we know very little about the people we are killing or what the blowback will be against the American people. While we know the precise numbers of civilians killed in Paris and San Bernardino, the U.S. military typically doesn’t bother counting the civilians killed from its own strikes. The clear message we send to the world is that Muslim lives don’t matter very much to the United States.

The other major candidate not in the pocket of corporations is Bernie Sanders. But, while he voted against the Iraq War and appears willing to take on Wall Street, in the Senate he has consistently approved appropriations to the war profiteers.

And if a candidate were willing to tell the truth about the war on terror, the corporate-controlled networks would do their best to censor and ignore them. As The Intercept reported, when CBS News ran a segment in mid-December featuring a focus group of American Muslims discussing causes of terror and radicalization, it edited out all of the criticisms of U.S. government policy toward Muslims. And as The Huffington Post has reported, the handful of journalists and politicians who were early skeptics of the Iraq War have been systematically shut out of the televised debate about how to combat ISIS and other threats.

Perhaps this explains why Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to take on the war machine. He is afraid the media blackout of his campaign would become a black hole.

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I find it simplistic to say that drones are the only cause of radicalisation.Honestly, our support to the dictatures manipulating these peoples is also what keeps them in ignorance and susceptible to radicalisationBut its one or the other. Either we support dictatures, or if they fall other dictatures re emerge. Its just complicated to rule these areas

Posted by sasha on 2016-01-27 01:15:52

Empires built on oil. Sustained on oil. Protected by oil. And in the end, undermined by oil. Its the river sucking us into this gauntlet of hell with a whole mess of armaments to compound our error. A wise world would recognize the peril and disarm as we descend the slope from peak oil. A league of sorts to combat the opportunity costs of the arms a gettin'. Capital and resources to divert to a vision without oil. A friendly competition to a better way of living on earth minus oil to avoid a coming conflagration in the bottle neck of scarcity and degradation. Jobs in restoring the earth vs. being left behind without employment as the global oil empire exploits the next cheaper labor source to fuel maximum return on investment. A vision to chop off that tail of oil, that history of oil empire that whips us unmercifully. A vision minus the imperative for growth the world has come to expect riding on this river of oil. A vision that will not make the Sunday morning talk shows. A vision that won't pay for blood flow enhancers. A sale for down the oil slope that won't attract many buyers. Because the big denial is that this oil flow will go on forever.

Posted by Lou Nelms on 2016-01-26 06:12:54

well written piece !

Posted by cmurf on 2016-01-24 11:54:58

He wouild do something to make a statement. We are doing nothing but creatingjobs in other countries, we have more than 500 bases in the world.

Posted by 6384601 on 2016-01-23 19:54:19

Even bloomberg is out to get trump. If he was as off the wall as people say why does he make money. These wars will eat us alive and why should our SOD sdpend as much money as the next 17 countries combined. The major military buyer in the middle east is Saudi Arabia. Why is it that we talk education but spend more money bringing workers to our country to take jobs, Our kids are required to have that reading average to get in college, but they set in college classes with yeachers who can not even speak the English language. In most Countries the majority of the college teachers are citizens of that country and they hire first Citizens of their country. In the US many times it looks like we will not hire US citizens. It is not your major in your degree, but the name of your college.

Posted by 6384601 on 2016-01-23 19:52:21

Do you REALLY think that Trump would withdraw American forces from the region?

The bottom line is, American, British and Dutch corporations control the world's main source of export oil, and that oil fuels the economies of Western Europe and East Asia - as long as that is the case there will be a compelling need for US, UK and NATO forces in the region

Posted by gregoryabutler on 2016-01-23 11:17:16

The so called progressive pro peace ideal candidate would

-limit use of American forces to North America for defensive purposes with no bases in Mexico, Cuba or anywhere in the world

-dismantle air naval carriers

-dismantle and layoff all NSA employees and officials-shut down the military academies and "war colleges" and post grad programs now funded by the Pentagon.

-abolish the JCS and its bureaucracy

-end all use of nuclear power by the military including nuclear weapons, ships, planes or any other current or planned nuclear project.

-end all possession of biological or chemical weapons, and shut down and lay off all employees and officials of such programs at any company or base at which this research or storage is conducted.

Leave NATO, rescind all treaties including the Treaty with Japan, Korea and Phillipines that require the US to defend East Asia.

Terminate all arms sales, public or private, of US manufactured weapons, to any nation or armed group.

End the military and intelligence arrangement with Israel, and sever diplomatic ties with Israel if a fully independent Palestinian state is not established with Jerusalem as its capital by January 1, 2018.

End all military assistance programs to any other nation.

Legalize and regualte the use and quality of marijuana, opiates, and other popular recreational drugs in the US. Establish a system of licensed dealers subject to quality inspection, including allowing sellers to be among others the socalled Mexican or Columbian cartels.

Clamp high tariffs on all goods manufactured or assmembled in Korea, China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangledesh, Sri Lanka, Phillipines, South Africa or Nigeria as well as Israel until a much enhnaced list of human rights, environmental, labor, human irghts and consumer safety measures are agreed to and implemented.

Provide and mandate biometiric id for every resident and visitor to the US, and once completed end deportations except in the instances of convicted violent felons without residency cards

mandate all employers whether federal contractors or not to use EVERIFY for employment check of legal residence in US.